Via Radley Balko, who points to Andy McCarthy’s latest piece in the National Review:
The Wall Street Journal (as flagged in the NRO web briefing) reports on rioting in China by Uighur “students” that has left scores dead and hundreds wounded. The “students,” described elsewhere in the story as from a “predominantly Muslim ethnic group[, which has] long chafed at restrictions on their civil liberties and religious practices imposed by a Chinese government fearful of political dissent,” expressed their dissent by torching cars and buses, as well as — according to accounts of some witnesses to state-controlled media — rampaging “with big knives stabbing people” on the street.
No reason for non-Muslims in Bermuda, Palau, or the United States to worry, though. The lovable Uighurs are merely trying to address “economic and social discrimination.” Once they get social justice, I’m sure they’ll stop.
I can’t even call this willful ignorance. This is just base, cynical stupidity. It cravenly plays to the uneducated and the xenophobic. Whether it was done purposely or not matters little. This is a pitiful argument from an un-nuanced and shallow mind. If this is what passes for conservative thought, you can have it.
Here’s are several questions for Mr. McCarthy:
1. Should the United States allow countries like China, with their absolutely horrific history of human rights abuse, to enlist it into its fight against “terrorism”? (Remember, please that Mao made Hitler look like an amateur piker.) If so, should Muslim ethnic minorities in Burma also be classified as such?
2. Do you agree with the Chinese Communist Party’s documented plans of gentrifying entire Chinese provinces, especially when said provinces were taken by force? I am speaking, of course, of Tibet and Xinjiang
3. Is it OK for a government to treat persons of different nationalities or religious beliefs as second class citizens, subject to harassment, arrest, detainment, etc…?
4. Does the Republican party (or conservative thinkers) actually stand for anything anymore? More specifically, Mr. McCarthy, what do you stand for? You know as well as anyone that the story coming out of China is nebulous and slanted. You know, Mr. McCarthy, that you don’t know the whole story. You understand that an entire population of hundreds of thousands of people are not responsible for the actions of a few hundred.
5. Since when did Republicans become apologists for repressive Communist regimes?
Seriously, Mr. McCarthy. Shame on you.